MWKN Weekly News for Monday, 9 Jul 2012

Front Page

Ex-Nokians found Jolla Mobile to “continue Nokia's excellent work on MeeGo-based smartphones”

The spirits of the downtrodden stalwarts of the Maemo and MeeGo communities were uplifted Saturday by the surprising announcement of Jolla Ltd., a new mobile smartphone company formed, in part, by former Nokia employees, with the stated goal of bringing new life to MeeGo and continuing the “excellent work that Nokia started.” According to the press release they've been “developing a new smartphone product and the OS since the end of 2011″ and a “new smartphone using this MeeGo based OS will be revealed later this year.” No detailed specifics about the stack have been announced beyond it being based on the Mer Core and Qt, with Jolla providing their own UI on top.

This is exciting news for enthusiasts of Free and Open Source mobile devices, as with Nokia's exit from that market (some would argue, even beginning with the trending towards closedness we saw in Harmattan), the continued and escalating escape of talented individuals from Nokia's MeeGo division, Apple's closed ecosystem, and Google's lipservice to open source the future was beginning to look dim. Jolla offers us a ray of hope in the darkness and a possible path into a mobile future that isn't focused on operators and app stores. Although they may lack the firepower of the bigger players, real disruption requires agility, and Jolla is in a position to disrupt the mobile market in ways Nokia has invested significant effort into avoiding since 2005.

Although the limited information available right now probably calls for cautious optimism, especially considering the effects of our Glorious Leader's insidious Necrotic Touch, reading the announcement yesterday kindled something in your editor that's been dead for a while: that quiet, powerful spark of excited giddiness that ignites for something new, innovative, and truly special. That, my friends, is no small feat. So here's to a free and open mobile future.

For more Jolla news and discussion, follow @JollaMobile on Twitter or join #jollamobile on Freenode.

Final(?) Nokia N9 update (PR1.3) now rolling out in waves

A lot of teasing of the PR1.3 update for the Nokia N9 has gone on over the past few weeks, but some users actually started receiving the update last week, and it is now officially being rolled out in waves: “As you might have noted already, we have now started rolling out a new update for N9 to 40.2012.21-3. This software release brings you over 1000 quality improvements, including Mail, Facebook, and Twitter, as well as several small network and connectivity improvements.” The announcement is thin on details and lacks a proper changelog, but information on the changes is being compiled on Talk. Check the link for details.